Party in Da Club!

Patrice J. Lee

We thought we were done with ridiculous gimmicks and tactics to lure young people into ObamaCare. It turns out we’re not. ObamaCare advocacy groups will hit more unconventional locations this summer to convince captive audiences of young people that they need the government’s healthcare plan.

On a strategy call, Enroll America, the advocacy group created to promote the President’s signature health care law, revealed they will kick off a new outreach operation next month and they plan to get more creative with their tactics.

Enroll America has traditional health fairs covered – no pun intended. And now, they’ll also be outside of night clubs where they can troll the long lines of party-goers waiting to get in. Another hot spot for enrollment activity will be courthouses. Plenty of young people who just got released from jail, are getting married or divorced, or are significant others, will be targeted for healthcare coverage while they wait for the judge.

Night clubbers, beware. An Obamacare evangelist may be coming to a bar near you.

…

Open enrollment into Obamacare closed on March 31. Among those now eligible for special enrollment are young people aging off of their parents' insurance plans.

Under the new rules, insurance companies are required to provide coverage for policyholders' dependents until age 26.

Young Invincibles, a youth focused pro-Obamacare group, estimates that 11,500 Americans will turn 26 each day between now and November when the open enrollment period begins anew...

There's a 'little bit of a "Where's Waldo?" component' to identifying people who fall into this category, Enroll America National Field Director John Gilbert said on last week's call.

But Enroll America thinks it's figured out a few good places to find and recruit these non-traditional enrollees, including night clubs, court houses and CVS Caremark drug stores.

Will –potentially intoxicated- partygoers really be in the right frame of mind to listen to an explanation of why they need healthcare and then sign up? It seems like an ill-advised plan. For one, healthcare is the last thought on a clubber’s mind, and second, the side of the road is not the safest place to share private information such as one’s full name, address, and social security number within earshot of random strangers.

I’m guessing this has already been thought through, but then we assumed to same for the brosurance and ho-surance ads that paint young people as looking for the next buzz or hookup. Last fall and earlier this spring the Administration wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a variety of weird, obnoxious, and down-right insulting tactics to get young people to enroll and it didn’t work then.

Do the Administration and its surrogate groups really understand young people? Obviously not as they try tactics that don’t resonate with my generation. The issue isn’t finding young people to enroll. The issue is with ObamaCare itself. We know a bad deal when we see it.

The un-Affordable Care Act is expensive for young people and it delivers less care for greater costs. It’s a system that’s rigged against young people by forcing us to offset costs for older, sicker Americans. Our healthcare costs are on the rise and they will only get worse. Like our parents and grandparents, we make a cost-benefit analysis when deciding how to spend or invest our limited resources. For many young people ObamaCare is cost-prohibitive.

Millennials face 15.6 percent effective unemployment. About two million 18-29 year olds aren’t even counted as unemployed because they have entirely dropped out of the labor market. Between finding money for housing, food, transportation, and student loan repayments, young people don’t have a tremendous amount of discretionary income.

Carrying healthcare is now mandated by law. It’s responsible. However, the regulations introduced because of ObamaCare have driven low-cost, bare bones plans that were popular among young people out of existence including those at their colleges and universities.

Young people want good, cost-effective coverage and many young people realize that ObamaCare doesn’t fill that gap. Expect them to bypass the enrollment tables as they party their way into the club.

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